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1. PROFESSOR JOHN & LJUBICA ERICKSON

2. THE
EASTERN
FRONTIN P H O T O G R A P H S

3. THIS IS A CARLTON BOOK
Design copyright © 2001 Carlton Books Limited
Text copyright © 2001 Professor John Erickson
This edition published by
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A CIP catalogue for this book is
available from the British Library.
UK ISBN 1 84222 242 2
US ISBN 1 84222 260 0
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4. THE
EASTERN
FRONTIN P H O T O G R A P H S
P R O F E S S O R J O H N & L J U B I C A E R I C K S O N

6. CONTENTS
1939-1941
DANGEROUS D E C E P T I O N S
8
1941
CATASTROPHE
18
1942
RECOVERY
88
1943
THE T U R N I N G POINT
130
1944
L I B E R A T I O N , CONQUEST
170
1945
JOY AND SORROW
208
I N D E X
250
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S
256

7. FOREWORD
On Sunday morning 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler launched the
greatest land campaign in world history: Operation Barbarossa,
the invasion of the Soviet Union. This was total war without match,
stupefying in its dimension, horrendous in its cruelty, harrowing in its
degradation. Hitler committed his armies to a war ofsubjugation, to an
ideological crusade against "Jewish-Bolshevism" and to racial war against
Slav "subhumans".

8. In the course of"The Great Patriotic War 1941-1945", the Soviet
Union mobilized 29,574,900 men. Wartime turnover in manpower
amounted to 21,700,000. During 1,418 days of barbarized warfare,
bereft of any legal or moral constraints, the Red Army's battlefield losses
were more than half those 21 million, 11,440,100 men put permanently
out of action. Almost one million men were variously convicted:
376,300 charged with desertion and 422,700 sentenced to service in
penal battalions, or strafbats, assigned to the most dangerous sectors.
Civilians were not spared. German rule in occupied territory took
the lives of some 16,350,000 citizens, shot, starved, neglected, or
murdered in concentration camps. More than two million were
deported for slave labour in the Reich. Soviet soldiers and civilians
shared a combined death toll of 27-28 million souls. Each minute ofthis
war cost 9-10 lives, each hour 587, each day 14,000. Savage partisan
warfare and ferocious German retribution compounded the horrors.
Huge hunks of fronts disintegrated. Entire armies vanished, some to
reappear later, others with fatal damage. Between 1941 and 1943, the
Wehrmacht destroyed almost a third of 570 Soviet rifle divisions. The
Red Army finally destroyed, disabled or captured 607 Axis divisions, at
great cost to itself in men and machines: 96,500 tanks, 106,400 aircraft
and 317,000 guns. Anglo-American armies fighting in North Africa,
Italy and Western Europe destroyed 176 enemy divisions.
What Boris Pasternak called the "naked power of evil" had been
unleashed. The cost to perpetrator and victim of first suppressing and
then exorcising it was visited on the wartime generation and also on their
descendants, mindful of inconsolable grief and ineluctable sorrows.

10. 1939-1941
DANGEROUS D E C E P T I O N S
"Let them come. We are ready."
J. V. STALIN
On the morrow of the signing of the Treaty of Non-Aggression
between Germany and the Soviet Union, the notorious Nazi-
Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939, Stalin declared himself well pleased.
He had not only outwitted Adolf Hitler, he had also deceived him for
the time being. The Soviet Union could now dictate the fate of the
Baltic states, Finland, Bessarabia and Bukovina, and immediate
territorial gain was guaranteed when the Red Army invaded Poland's
eastern provinces on 17 September 1939. With the prospect of further
acquisitions, notably access to the Baltic, substantially improving the
Soviet Union's strategic situation, Stalin could comfortably sit out the
Second World War, finally exploiting the mutual exhaustion of the
combatants while the Soviet Union remained unscathed and inviolate.
Deceit and delusion fed on each other. The Soviet "security circle"
had apparently been squared. Contrived "neutralism" spared the Soviet
Union the strain of general war. Secret territorial agreements enabled
Stalin to recover Russia's former strategic frontiers. Yet Stalin's search
for security led him inevitably toward territorial aggrandizement,
steadily encroaching upon Germany's sphere of influence. During the
winter of 1939—1940, Stalin waged war on Finland to seal off the
eastern Baltic. Soviet military performance was dismal, the cost
391,000 men killed, missing or wounded. The Red Army failed to pass
rudimentary tests ofmilitary effectiveness. Marshal Kliment Vbroshilov
might boast "Comrades, our army is invincible", but this humiliation
served only to encourage the German command and others to dismiss
the Red Army as a serious force.
Stalin's delusion was abruptly shattered in June 1940 by the fall of
France and the Wehrmacht's triumph in western Europe. Stalin cursed
the English and the French for succumbing so easily. Hitler would
now inevitably and irrevocably turn east. Stalin's frantic response was
to launch the Red Army into the Baltic states in the north and
Bessarabia and the Northern Bukovina in the south, exercising the
territorial options concealed in the secret protocols to the 1939 Pact.
Paradoxically, the farther west and southwest Soviet frontiers were
pushed, the more "security" appeared to diminish. Existing mobiliza-
tion plans were rendered obsolete at a stroke. On the home front,
industry went over to a virtual war footing. Strict controls were
imposed on the Soviet work force and absenteeism was made
punishable. The Red Army was subject to drastic disciplinary codes.
The existing Soviet war plan dating back to 1938 was now hurriedly
reviewed. Much to Stalin's displeasure, this initial review repeated the
findings of the 1938 plan, that any major German offensive would
develop to the north of the Pripet marshes. Together with Defence
Commissar Semen Timoshenko, Stalin demanded an immediate
revision of this review in order to pursue his conviction that the main
attack would develop from the southwest, aimed directly at Kiev and
9

11. D A N G E R O U S D E C E P T I O N S : 1 9 3 9 - 1 9 4 1
the Ukraine. Stalin argued that in order to sustain protracted war,
Hitler needed Ukrainian grain and Donbas coal. Accordingly, at Stalin's
insistence, the new war plan assigned priority to the southwestern
theatre. Here the Red Army proceeded to reinforce continuously and
substantially, the origin of the ill-conceived, inappropriate deployments
that were to take place on the eve ofJune 1941.
On 12 November 1940, the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov met
Hitler in Berlin. Molotov spurned German suggestions that the Soviet
Union associate itselfwith the Axis in the Tripartite Pact. Stalin was
more concerned about German encroachments in the Balkans,
demanding assurances, guaranties and concessions. Hitler was incensed
at Stalin's attitude, denouncing him as "a cold-blooded blackmailer".
The Nazi-Soviet Pact was rapidly coming apart at the seams. Losing all
interest in negotiation, one month and six days later, on 18 December
1940, Hitler issued Directive No. 21: "The German Armed Forces must
be prepared to crush Russia in a quick campaign (Operation Barbarossa)
even before the conclusion ofwar against England." Hitler was bent on
war, Stalin committed to avoiding it at all costs.
As early as January 1941, Soviet intelligence received information
on Hitler's intentions and German troop movements eastward. The Red
Army set about reorganizing and rearming, unfortunately in haphazard
fashion. Impressed by what the German Panzers had achieved in the
west, Stalin abruptly ordered the reconstitution of disbanded tank and
mechanized corps. The "class of 1940", generals and admirals newly
promoted by Stalin, were sent back to school. Secret strategic war games
that took place in January 1941 tested the revised war plan. The primacy
ofthe southwestern theatre was confirmed, but the idea of a German
surprise attack never entered the planners' heads. The obsession with a
German strike into the Ukraine persisted. Frontier battles would last
10-15 days, by which time both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army
would have concentrated and deployed. The Red Army would first
defend, then launch its own retaliatory blow, carrying the war into enemy
territory. As one senior Soviet commander observed much later, it was as
if the Soviet Union was preparing for the war of 1914, not 1941.
General Georgii Zhukov's updated war plan submitted in mid-
March 1941 simply restated these ideas against the background of
intensified German military traffic eastward reported by Soviet intelli-
gence. The Wehrmacht dug deeper into the Balkans, entrenching itself
in Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria, closing in on Russia. In April 1941,
Hitler invaded Yugoslavia and swept into Greece. Stalin flinched but
barely reacted, confining himself merely to a futile, tardy gesture toward
Yugoslavia. He was warned that Germany intended to attack, the
target now Russia, the timing June. The effect of this and other
warnings seemed only to stiffen Stalin's determination to avoid war
with Germany, come what may. Deliberate signals were sent,
confirming adherence to the 1939 Pact. Stalin even used the signing
of the Neutrality Pact with Japan on 13 April to affirm friendship
with Germany "in any event".
In May 1941, evidence of war intensified. Soviet agents in Germany
confirmed German military preparations but added a fatal qualification
that war would be preceded by a German ultimatum. This only
encouraged Stalin's policy of appeasement, though on 5 May he
acknowledged a "danger period" lasting until mid-summer. Thereafter,
war might be deferred to 1942. The same day, the dam burst. The
strategy ofwar-avoidance suffered a shattering blow. Red Army military
intelligence reported, accurately, the concentration of 103-107 German
divisions, including 12 Panzer divisions, aimed at the Soviet Union.
The execution of the long-manifest threat seemed imminent.
The moment of truth had arrived for the Soviet General Staff.
The Red Army must either launch a Soviet version of the Blitzkrieg or
implement general mobilization. General Zhukov's plan of 15 May
1941 proposed using 152 Soviet divisions to destroy 100 German
divisions. Stalin dismissed this as a recipe for disaster, forbidding either
an offensive or mobilization. Hobbled by Stalin, the Red Army could
neither attack nor defend. But fresh phantoms had come to haunt the
Soviet leader. On 10 May 1941, RudolfHess, Hitler's deputy, made his
extraordinary flight to Scotland. The upshot was to deflect Stalin's
attention from the German threat and fix it upon a possible British anti-
Soviet conspiracy. Previous British warnings about the consequences of
settling with Germany he now interpreted as a sinister threat. Did Hess's
arrival signal an Anglo—German deal to give Germany a free hand in the
east, or yet another British manoeuvre to embroil him in war? Deliberate
disinformation by British intelligence, exploiting Hess's flight, only
succeeded in confirming Stalin's worst fears of a conspiracy.
10

12. D A N G E R O U S D E C E P T I O N S : 1939-1941
The political strategy of"war-avoidance" and the military's
approach to "creeping up on war" played havoc with Soviet defence
preparations. Zigzag propaganda alternately reassured and unnerved the
population, and confused the army. Mobilization planning — MP-41 —
proceeded only in fits and starts. By June 1941, revised plans remained
incomplete and timetables slipped disastrously. Plans at military district
were unfinished and no plan existed to bring all forces to full readiness.
The General Staff "Plan for the defence of the state frontiers" outlined
deployments but lacked specific operational orders. The organization of
frontier defence presumed that the Red Army would not be taken by
surprise, that any decisive action would be preceded by a declaration of
war and that initial enemy operations would involve only limited forces,
giving the Red Army time to cover mobilization. Conscious that general
mobilization had triggered war in 1914, Stalin not only ruled out
mobilization but also withheld authorization to increase unit readiness
lest this "provocation" provided Germany with a pretext to strike.
His only concession was to agree to "covert mobilization" by calling up
reservists in the guise ofsummer manoeuvres.
Soviet diplomacy dropped persistent hints that "a fresh compromise"
with Berlin was possible and even in the offing. Economic supplies to
Germany transported along the Trans-Siberian Railway from the
Soviet Far East were speeded up. Berlin calculated that it could make
economic demands on Russia exceeding the January 1941 trade
agreement. It was this factor that persuaded many, the British
intelligence included, to view German troop concentrations as
pressure to wring further Soviet concessions. Moreover, Stalin could
not persuade himself that Hitler would abandon that fundamental
German strategic precept: never wage war on two fronts. Berlin
hinted that negotiations might just be possible.
On 14 June 1941, Stalin authorized a Soviet press statement,
discounting the imminence ofwar, denouncing rumours of a German
attack as "completely without foundation", provokatsiya spread by "false
friends". "The recent movement of German troops who have completed
their operations in the Balkans are connected, it must be supposed, with
other motives that have nothing to do with Soviet-German relations."
The same day, the German High Command issued a warning order to
German commands in the east, allocating the code word "Dortmund"
for the launch of Operation Barbarossa. All German preparations were
to be completed by IS June 1941.
Stalin waited in vain for a response from Berlin. The German
command duly confirmed code words on 15 June, fixing the time and
place of the German attack as "B-Day, Y-hours" (22 June 1941, 0300
hours), final dispositions to proceed after 18 June. Panzer divisions
would move to their start lines by night. Desperately troubled Soviet
front-line commanders telephoned Moscow only to be told: "There
will be no war". This was precisely the burden of the report submitted
to Stalin by Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD, on Saturday 21 June.
Even as the Soviet military reported the first German movements, as
the Luftwaffe was launching its aerial massacre ofSoviet aircraft neatly
parked on their airfields, Stalin refused to abandon his obsession with
"provocations", in this instance German officers on an insubordinate
personal rampage. Marshal Timoshenko could not persuade him that
this was all-out war. Stalin forbade General Zhukov to activate
defensive plans. Soviet forces were forbidden to cross German lines
"with the sole exception of the air force", just as his air force was being
destroyed on the ground. The Wehrmacht was already advancing into
Russia, dive-bombers roaring ahead. Soviet soldiers watched German
aircraft returning from bombing their rear.
At 4am in Berlin Foreign Minister Ribbentrop presented the Soviet
Ambassador, Vladimir Dekanozov, with reasons for Germany taking
"military counter-measures". Soviet Embassy telephones had been
disconnected. Desperate for news, Embassy stafftuned in Moscow
Radio for the 6am (Moscow time) news. To their astonishment, the
news, preceded by a physical programme instruction and an item for
children, reported only non-Soviet war news and progress in Soviet
agriculture and industry.
"Hitler surely does not know about this." Stalin's desperate
comment betrayed his utter disbelief that this could be war, not
simply more intimidation to extract further concessions. War without
ultimatum, without diplomatic preamble, without pretext, without a
formal declaration was base deception, now denounced by the man who
22 months ago had prided himself on hoodwinking Hitler.
Stalin left it to Molotov to broadcast the state ofwar at noon on
Sunday 22 June.
11

13. D A N G E R O U SD E C E P T I O N S :1939-1941
UNHOLY ALLIANCE
The conclusion of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty
of23 August 1939, commonly known as the "Nazi—Soviet
Pact", stunned the world. It represented the most dramatic about-
turn in diplomatic history. Just as Europe was about to go to war,
these two states — known for their mutual hostility - pledged
neutrality, non-aggression and mutual consultation. Attached to
the published treaty was a secret protocol prescribing demarcated
Soviet-German "spheres of influence". Stalin signalled his
abandonment of collective security for reliance on neutrality.
In effect, the Soviet Union promised neutrality in Hitler's war
with the west in return for a German undertaking to stay away
from Finland, Estonia, Latvia and eastern Poland.
Above
GermanForeignMinisterJoachim
von Ribbentrop signs the
German-Soviet Non-Aggression
Pact. His trip to Moscow was
announced on 21 August 1939.
He arrived on 23 August.
Negotiations were conducted
betweenRibbentrop,Vyacheslav
Molotov and Joseph Stalin. The
conclusion of a non-aggression
treaty and a "secret additional
protocol" was agreed.
Below
Stalin and Ribbentrop
shake hands. Stalin:
"The Soviet Government
takes the Pact very seriously,
can guarantee on my word
of honour that the Soviet
Union would not betray its
partner." That proved to be
precisely the case, only it
was not to be reciprocated.
12

14. DIVIDING THE SPOILS
D A N G E R O U S D E C E P T I O N S : 1 9 3 9 - 1 9 4 1
At 3 a.m. on 17 September 1939, the Polish Ambassador in
Moscow learned that the Soviet government had ordered
the Red Army to cross the Polish frontier. Poland was caught in
a horrendous trap, the Wehrmacht attacking from the west, the
Red Army advancing from the east. The Polish command
ordered that no resistance be offered to Soviet troops.
Right
Colonel General Heinz
Guderian (centre) and
Colonel Semen Krivoshein
(on Guderian's left) at
a farewell parade of Soviet
and German troops
with salutes to both flags,
marking the hand-over of
the fortress of Brest to
the Russians. The Bug river
marked the demarcation line;
the German army had
to evacuate territory east
of this boundary.
German troops had crossed the Bug river and besieged
Brest, violating the agreed Soviet-German demarcation line.
Colonel S. M. Krivoshein, 29th Light Tank Brigade, negotiated
German withdrawal from Brest with Panzer General Heinz
Guderian. In the Lvov area, German and Soviet troops
"exchanged positions".
Left
Soviet and German troops meet. At 5.40 a.m. on 1 7 September
I 939 Red Army cavalry and tanks crossed the Soviet-Polish
frontier line. Stalin had requested that German aircraft should
not fly east of the Bialystok-Brest Litovsk-Lvov line in order to
avoid incidents. The next day Stalin expressed "certain doubts"
as to whether the German High Command would honour the
Moscow agreements and the agreed demarcation lines.
Above
Hardly a rapturous reception for the entry of Soviet troops into the
Polish city of Lwow (Lvov). German troops withdrew on 21-22
September in line with the "exchange of positions". There was a
strong Polish potential to defend the city against the Red Army but
the city commandant General Langner submitted to persistent
Soviet demands and, after negotiations, surrendered.
13

15. D A N G E R O U S D E C E P T I O N S : 1 9 3 9 - 1 9 4 1
"FRIENDS FALL OUT": MOLOTOV IN BERLIN
Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov arrived in Berlin on 12
November 1940 for talks with Hitler and Ribbentrop. What
Stalin wanted was a fresh "spheres ofinfluence" agreement with
Germany, removing German military presence from Finland and
to secure Soviet control of the Black Sea Straits. Hitler refused
this point-blank. He wanted Soviet participation in the Tripartite
Pact, Soviet recognition of German hegemony in Europe and
Soviet expansion southward. Acrimonious disagreement followed
Bulgaria in the Soviet sphere, and a Soviet—Turkish understanding and the talks deadlocked when Molotov left on 14 November.
Left
Molotov with Reichsmarschall
Hermann Goering (left). Goering
had boasted that the Luftwaffe had
destroyed the Royal Air Force. Sitting
in an air raid shelter during the conference
Molotov asked sardonically if Goering's
claims were true, why was he (Molotov]
sitting in an air raid shelter and what were
those British bombers doing above him.
Above
Break for refreshments.
Molotov seated far left;
to the right, Ribbentrop is in
conversation with Reichsführer
SS Heinrich Himmler.
Left
Molotov's talks with Adolf
Hitler and Ribbentrop began
on the day he arrived in
Berlin. It was Ribbentrop who
had invited Molotov to Berlin.
Stalin was cautious, the
attitude assumed by Molotov
in Berlin. Stalin wanted a
new Nazi-Soviet Pact. Hitler
and Ribbentrop rejected
this outright and offered no
concessions to Moscow.
14

16. "THEWINTERWAR"1939-1940
D A N G E R O U S D E C E P T I O N S : 1939-1941
The Soviet-Finnish war - the "Winter War" - was waged
between 19 November 1939 and 13 March 1940, and did
serious damage to the reputation of the Red Army due to its inept
performance against "little Finland". Initial Finnish concessions
failed to satisfy Moscow, and the Red Army launched its first,
badly prepared offensive on 30 November. Nimble Finnish ski
troops, prepared for winter war, harried the cumbersome, ill-
trained Soviet troops. Red air-force attacks were largely
ineffectual. On 12 February 1941, the Red Army unleashed a
powerful offensive, heavy artillery smashing Finnish defences.
Exhausted, the Finns sued for an armistice in March. The war cost
the Red Army over 391,000 men, killed, missing or wounded.
Above
A column of Soviet BA-32-3 armoured cars, armed with a
45-mm gun, on the move in Finland. Columns like these were
easily ambushed by highly mobile Finnish troops trained in
winter warfare. The Red Army deployed a minimum of 45
Rifle Divisions (5 Armies), and over 1 500 tanks. It suffered
severely from failing to win a speedy victory over the Finns.
Below
Red Air Force TB-3 heavy
bomber, an obsolete
machine, which suffered
heavy losses in the war.
The Red Air Force finally
committed over 2000
aircraft to the "Winter War".
Bombing raids on Finnish
targets failed to disrupt troop
movements or demoralize
the Finnish population.
Soviet losses were
estimated at some 700
to 950 aircraft. The Finnish
Air Force lost 70 aircraft.
Bottom
In February 1 940, the Red
Army began its second war
with Finland. In forests like
these, Finnish resistance
cost the Red Army dear. On
1 1 February, massed Soviet
artillery gave the Finnish
defences a final battering.
At the conclusion of the war
Red Army casualties
amounted to 391,783:
126,875 killed in action,
missing, or died of wounds,
and 264,908 medical
casualties.
15

17. D A N G E R O U S D E C E P T I O N S : 1939-1941
RED ARMY REORGANIZATION
The fall of France in June 1940 severely agitated Stalin. It
signalled to the Red Army to embark on a frantic policy of
re-organization and re-armament. The mistaken decision taken in
1939 to disband the Red Army's large tank formations was
hurriedly reversed. Stalin authorized the re-establishment ofthe
mechanized corps. The war plan dating back to 1938 was urgently
updated, mobilization plans revamped. Numerical expansion and
technological modernization brought fresh turmoil, exacerbating
existing problems. Officers and men had to be retrained, but time
was running out. Worse, the new war plan was seriously flawed.
Coupled with this was Stalin's "war avoidance" strategy, that left
the Red Army in June 1941 unable either to attack or to defend.
Above
Marshal Semen Timoshenko, cigarette in hand, and
General Georgii Zhukov on his left, inspecting field exercises
in the Kiev Military District, autumn 1 940. In May Timoshenko
succeeded Marshal Kliment Voroshilov as Defence Commissar.
Timoshenko introduced a new realistic training programme.
Intensive training was backed up by iron discipline.
16

18. D A N G E R O U S D E C E P T I O N S : 1939-1941
Left
Red Army "fast tanks" (BT-7-1)
on exercises. On 22 June
1 941 the Red Army tank-park
amounted to 23,485
machines, of which 8000
were estimated to be for front
line operations. In June, 73
per cent of older machines,
BT tanks, T-28s, were
undergoing repairs, 29 per
cent major overhaul. Only a
trickle of the new T-34
medium tanks and KV heavy
tanks had reached the five
frontier commands. Byjune,
a mere 1 475 had arrived
(504 KVs, 967T-34s|.
Above
Instruction on a T-28B armed
with a 45-mm gun. Produced
between 1933-1940, the
3- turreted T-28, like many
other Soviet tanks, was
approaching obsolescence.
The hastily re-formed tank
and mechanized formations
lacked both modern
tanks and training. Driver-
mechanics had only 1 1
/2-2
hours' experience of tank
driving. Command staff for
the most part lacked any rea
training in the handling of
tank and motorized units.
17

20. 1941
CATASTROPHE
Not until noon on Sunday 22 June 1941, was the population
informed that the Soviet Union was at war, the war Stalin had
manoeuvred to avoid or at least postpone. Even at this late stage he had
struggled frantically to obtain clarification from Berlin and Tokyo. The
"thunder from a clear sky" intensified by the hour. The wreckage of a
thousand Soviet aircraft, shattered by Luftwaffe bombing, littered front-
line airfields. Belatedly warned of an impending German attack,
forbidden to implement full readiness, the Red Army was now ordered
to contain enemy attacks before launching "a powerful counter-blow", a
hopelessly unrealistic requirement in view ofthe havoc already wreaked
by German guns and dive-bombers. Some regiments were fully
manned, others needed several days to complete mobilization. German
bombers targeted large cities near the front, destroying military admin-
istrative centres and cutting communications. Chaos ensued. The
frontier commands were being torn to pieces, their situation changing
by the hour from alarming to perilous.
The Soviet Union mobilized under fire. General mobilization
succeeded in bringing some 5.3 million men to the colours.
The Russian Orthodox Church responded ahead of the Communist
Party. Patriarch Sergei of Moscow and All Russia called on all believers
to defend Mother Russia, to defeat Fascism. Numbing shock began
to wear off, but here was a highly militarized state without a functioning
war machine. In Moscow, a preliminary wartime command system
was hastily organized, although the High Command Sta-vka (General
Headquarters) lacked a commander-in-chief. Administrative decree
formally placed the Soviet Union on a war footing, the first of a flood of
orders. One early decision, which formed the Industrial Evacuation
Council (Sovetpo evakuatsii) proved to be critically important and
the first step toward a vast industrial migration that transferred men
and machines into the eastern hinterland.
While Russia recoiled from the shock, the situation at the front
rapidly deteriorated. Sixteen hours after launching Operation
Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht had virtually unhinged the Soviet
Northwestern and Western Fronts. The Western Front began to
disintegrate. Government, Party and nation had yet to be fully
energized. Stalin had failed to grasp the scale ofmilitary operations
and the vastness of the war engulfing the Soviet Union. Only at the
end ofJune, with Soviet divisions trapped in a giant German encircle-
ment west of Minsk, did the terrible truth dawn. The Red Army
was trapped in strategic maldeployment, its strength concentrated in the
southwest while powerful Panzer groups attacked in the northwest and
at the centre, closing on Leningrad and striking along the Moscow axis.
Stalin's nerve failed him at this point. Nevertheless, he recovered
sufficiently to head a new, all-powerful body, the GKO (Gosudarstvennyi
komitet oborony) or State Defence Committee, small in numbers but
massive in authority. The high command was reorganized, a further step
toward unifying the military and political direction of the war effort,
culminating on 8 August with Stalin's virtual self-appointment as
Supreme Commander ofthe Soviet Armed Forces (Verkhovnyi
glavnokomanduyushchyi). He now held all key posts: chairman
of the GKO, Defence Commissar and Supreme Commander.
On 3 July 1941, Stalin finally broadcast to the nation, opening with
19

21. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
unheard-offamiliarity: "Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters!"
This would be a "people's war", patriotic, partisan, and unrelenting.
But Stalin's unprecedented personal appeal to his "brothers and
sisters" was accompanied by the imposition of the savage "discipline of
the revolver". Senior commanders were executed. The Western Front
commander General Pavlov and his staffwent before a firing squad.
"Cowards and traitors" were summarily executed. Families were held
accountable for soldiers taken prisoner or abandoning the battlefield.
It was a system criminally profligate with soldiers' lives, one that
brutally coerced or callously abandoned the civilian population.
The wreckage of the Western Front lay strewn over 200 miles
(320 kilometres). The German haul of prisoners was staggering,
reaching three million by December. Losses in weapons and
equipment were on a stupefying scale: 20,000 tanks and 18,000 aircraft.
Industrial evacuation gained momentum but, inevitably, industrial
production dropped steeply in factories temporarily "on wheels".
The Wehrmacht drove ever deeper into Soviet territory, cutting off
manpower and seizing resources. In the late autumn, the near-terminal
crisis deepened. Leningrad was besieged, closed off to the outside
world, suffering the first of 900 days of horror, hunger and cannibalism
under German guns. Kiev fell on 18 September. Stalin's refusal to
permit timely withdrawal trapped Soviet armies in another huge
German encirclement. The Ukraine was all but lost. The German Army
now marched on Moscow, triggering the "great panic of October".
Prime Minister Churchill had earlier promised, much to Stalin's
relief, that Great Britain would not seek a separate peace with Germany.
Now, in apparent desperation Stalin sought to do exactly that.
He secretly sent out peace feelers to Berlin, proposing to cede the
Baltic states, Bessarabia, even part of the Ukraine. The Soviet tactic
was disguised by denouncing a supposed German offer of an armistice,
a"peaceoffensive".
As in June, so in October, Berlin stayed silent. Germany was
poised for complete victory in Russia. Another massive encirclement
at Vyazma crippled Moscow's immediate defences. The Soviet
government evacuated itself to Kuibyshev; Stalin wavered for 24 hours
but decided to remain in the capital. The Moscow panic subsided and
evacuation was organized more systematically: while 200 trains hurried
civilians eastward, 80,000 railway trucks transported 498 dismantled
factories out of the capital. Only 21,000 of Moscow's 75,000
metal-cutting lathes were left on site, and these were turned over
to weapons production. Despite German bombing while factories were
being shifted, one-and-a-half million railway wagons managed to shift
two-and-a-half million troops to the front, and transferred 1,523
industrial plants to the east, 455 to the Urals, 210 to western Siberia,
250 to the Volga, 250 to Kazakhstan and Central Asia.
By late October, the industrial region of the Donbas had been
overrun, Kharkov captured and the Crimea threatened. Moscow's
outer defence line had been breached and German units were less than
50 miles (80 kilometres) from the Kremlin. In Berlin, the Chief of the
Reich Press Office announced grandly that "Russia is finished".
To many, Germans and Russians alike, the Red Army appeared to be
on the verge of destruction while Soviet society lurched toward
disintegration. All the signs pointed to society's vital signs failing,
but complete disintegration did not follow. Enormous burdens had
been heaped on the populace. Civilians were drafted to man the
untrained, ill-armed militia, facing crack German divisions.
Women, juveniles and the elderly had to compensate for failures
to plan. Mobilization took men from the land, tractors were
commandeered for the army, women harnessed themselves to
ploughs, replacing the tractors and the draught animals.
The transition to "patriotic war" led to an intense campaign to
identify the Communist Party with the Motherland, the abandonment
ofpropaganda shibboleths coinciding with signs of a genuine,
impassioned mood of national resistance. German atrocities, the manic
killings, the brutal exploitation, the contempt for the Untermensch,
massively encouraged resistance. The partisan movement was slowly
gathering strength, while the Party used its "cadres administrations"
to staff and direct partisan units.
Fortunately for the Soviets, complete collapse at the front and in
the rear failed to materialize and Japan did not attack in the east.
A two-front war would have doomed the Soviet Union. Soviet society
showed an unexpected capacity to absorb immense damage and great
ability to improvise amid chaos. Popular response was nevertheless
uneven, dependent on local pride and local resources. The Communist
20

22. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Party, acting as an administrative agent, operated indifferently, and,
at the lowest levels, inflexibly. For a society long hardened to privation,
the demands made upon it were frequently inhuman, but firm
leadership produced results.
Much the same applied to the Soviet soldier. With proper
leadership he fought tenaciously, only to be seized by sudden,
inexplicable defeatism and panic that resulted in flight in the face of
uncontrolled disorder. For all the years of repression and intimidation,
basic moral resilience had survived in Soviet society, which was now
fuelled by genuine patriotism and reaction to German barbarism.
The Wehrmacht failed to destroy the Red Army, terribly mangled
though it was. As early as July, Stalin had ordered a ruthless
reorganization into "small armies with five, maximum six, divisions",
along with the abolition of corps administrations. Remnants ofthe
lumbering mechanized corps were disbanded, and their few surviving
tanks assigned to infantry support. A huge expansion in cavalry
provided a temporary mobile force. Stripping artillery from divisions
to form a High Command Artillery Reserve, employing direct fire and
putting "the guns up front where they could see and hit the enemy" did
much to save the Red Army. In November, Red Army strength dropped
to its lowest ever: barely two million. But to the surprise and consterna-
tion ofthe German high command, fresh divisions and armies appeared
in the Soviet order of battle: 18 fresh field armies had been raised from
reserves and reductions in existing armies since July. Stalin very quickly
grasped the importance of reserves, although the Red Army cried out
for "trained forces in adequate strength".
Seas of autumnal mud, Russia's notorious rasputitsa, dragged
the German drive on Moscow to a halt in late October. Clamped in
seamless mud, both sides reinforced as best they could. On 6 November,
anniversary of the Revolution, Stalin threw down a challenge in his
speech: "If the Germans want a war of extermination, they shall have
one". The Blitzkrieg had failed; the Red Army was still unbroken in
the field. The next day, he reviewed a parade in Red Square of troops
moving straight to the front line. Red Army front-line strength had
recovered to almost 4,200,000 men supported by 7,400 aircraft and
4,490 tanks. To replace huge losses, 227 rifle divisions had been formed,
84 reformed and 143 rebuilt. In the north, Stalin ordered an attack to
prevent a fatal conjunction of German and Finnish forces and secure
the vital "ice road" over Lake Ladoga, Leningrad's sole life-line.
In the south, Timoshenko recaptured Rostov on 29 November.
This German reverse, the first of any significance in the east, quickly
ignited a crisis within the German high command.
Frosts hardened the ground. In mid-November, the Wehrmacht
renewed its advance on Moscow. Improvised Soviet "composite groups"
fought to hold off the pincers of a huge German encirclement.
General Zhukov ordered a stand to the death. Red Army and German
units grappled in freezing temperatures, both decimated and equally
exhausted. Stalin dribbled reinforcements to the front, a handful of
tanks here, packets ofmen there, all the while hoarding strategic
reserves: 44 rifle and cavalry divisions and 13 brigades, sufficient for
eight field armies. Zhukov scraped up his own meagre reserves.
On 4 December 1941, the final German thrust due east along the
Minsk-Moscow highway was fought to a standstill in the city's outer
suburbs. German units stood frozen in their tracks. German intelligence
argued that Red Army reserves were exhausted: "no large reserve
formations" existed. On 30 November, General Zhukov submitted his
plans for a counter-stroke at Moscow. Stalin had secretly fed substantial
reinforcement into three Fronts, Kalinin, Western and Southwestern,
assembling a force of 1,100,000 men, 15 field armies, 774 tanks
and 1,000 aircraft to power the Soviet attack. Timing was crucial.
Stalin was convinced the German Army had dangerously overreached
itself. Soviet and German strengths were now roughly equal. At 0300
hours on 5 December 1941, just two days before Japan's strike on Pearl
Harbor, the Red Army attacked.
The tank divisions of the Western Front had pitifully few tanks,
artillery was lacking and ammunition was available only to assault
units. Zhukov relied on speed and surprise to compensate for large
mobile forces, missing weapons and the lack of fully trained troops -
his plan needed only a minimum of operational skill. For eight days
the country heard little or nothing. Only on 13 December did
Radio Moscow report Soviet successes to the north and south,
announcing "the failure of the German plan to encircle and capture
Moscow". Three days later, the Red Army turned to pursuit, harrying
retreating German divisions.
21

23. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
ATTACK: SUNDAY, 22 JUNE 1941
In the early hours of Sunday morning, 22 June 1941, the
German Army invaded the Soviet Union. In spite of being
given repeated warnings of a German attack, Stalin had refused
to order full military readiness on the frontiers. "The Germans
must not be given any pretext for action against us", he reasoned.
The Red Army was thus unable either to attack or defend.
Within hours, Soviet frontier guards were overwhelmed, the
undermanned Soviet divisions caught in a maelstrom of fire,
fast-moving German tanks and paralyzing bombing. Sixteen
hours after the opening of Operation Barbarossa, the German
Army had virtually unhinged two key Soviet Fronts, the
Northwestern and the Western.
Above
At 031 5 hours on 22 June, German guns opened fire.
Across the giant arc of the Soviet land frontier German troops
moved to their attack positions. With the misi and half light
to aid the attack, German infantry and armour slid out of their
concealment. Forward German elements, seen here, penetrated
Soviet positions and overwhelmed frontier guards, opening
passages for motorized and Panzer divisions ready to advance.
22

24. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
German armour on the
move at the beginning of
a very long journey. Almost
everywhere the Wehrmacht
achieved tactical surprise.
Soviet troops were caught in
their camps and barracks
and the Germans quickly
overran incomplete or
unmanned field fortifications.
Right
The front aflame. The pattern
of heavy German bombing
attacks, unexpected
and punishing artillery fire
"like thunder from a clear
sky" and the assault on the
Soviet frontier positions
caused havoc among Red
Army units. Russian units
radioed plaintively, "we are
being fired on. What shall
we do?" They were
reprimanded, but
received no orders.
23

25. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
0415 hours, 22June. Advance units of the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Panzer Division, General Heinz Guderian's
Panzer Group 2, begin crossing the River Bug. General
Guderian had earlier observed that the strong points on the
Soviet bank were unoccupied. At 0445 hours, leading tanks
of the Eighteenth Panzer Division (seen here) forded the river.
German "submersible tanks", equipped with waterproofing
and able to move through 1 3 feet (4 metres) of water, had
originally been developed for the invasion of Britain.
24

26. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
These Soviet frontier troops had already been taken prisoner
before they realized that they were at war with Germany.
The firsl operational order issued to the Red Army mentioned
only "unprecedented aggression", not war. Frontier guards
fought back, and their wives, also in the firing line, fetched
water and ammunition and looked after the wounded.
Some of the women were also firing at the Germans.
25

27. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
A captured Soviet soldier being searched by German
soldiers. His chances of survival were slim. "After
being interrogated who was the commander, the
number of our unit etc., we were put behind barbed
wire, kept without food or water. Then we were made
to walk for three days (drinking water from potholes]."
German troops organized the external guard. Among
the prisoners the "politzei", volunteers from the
prisoners, Tartars and Ukrainians kept order. Jews,
Communists and Commissars, if discovered, were
stripped to the waist, lined up and shot.
Left
German troops clear a
village. Soviet civilians were
ordered out of operational
areas, most to make their
way to what refuge they
could find, others to be
conscripted for forced labour
and ultimate deportation.
Animals were confiscated
and houses frequently
looted, then burned.
Opposite
German artillery observers
spotting for targets. The initial
German bombardment
had put much of the Soviet
artillery out of action.
By noon, having flattened
initial resistance and silenced
Soviet guns, German Panzer
and mobile forces in the
northwest and at the centre
were now set to strike out.
26

29. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
Villages burned one by one along the route of the German
advance. As well as the villages, the crops burned.
Columns of dishevelled women and weeping children
left exposed villages, seeking what they supposed
would be safety in the towns. Others gathered in the
open fields, where German soldiers attempted to
convince them to return to what was left of their homes.
28

30. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Towns and cities, such as
this one, were also burned.
Here, two women take
refuge with a few, meagre
possessions in an improvised
shelter. Luftwaffe bombers
had rampaged over towns
and large cities in the frontier
military districts, destroying
the military administration,
buildings and communications
centres. Civilians were
caught up in both the heavy
bombing and the rapid
advance of German troops.
29

31. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
LOSSES
The Luftwaffe massacred the Red Air Force, destroying 1,811
aircraft in hours, of which 1,489 were on the ground.
Huge losses mounted catastrophically: 20,500 tanks, thousands
of aircraft and over three million prisoners of war by December
1941, most of whom were doomed to die. The civilian population
suffered horrendously, callously left to their fate by the authorities
or brutally coerced to dig trenches, take up rifles, or raise a local
militia, and constantly threatened by the rapid German advance
and harried by heavy bombing. Shortages were universal, made
worse by falling production and appalling battlefield losses.
Above
German bombers - Hel 1 1 s, Ju 88s and Dol 7Zs - attack a
Soviet airfield. "We hardly believed our eyes. Row after row
of Soviet planes stood lined up as if on parade," said one
Luftwaffe pilot. German aircraft carried out a devastating
pre-emptive attack on 66 airfields in Soviet western military
districts, where 70 per cent of Soviet air strength, mainly in
the form of fighters, was deployed closed to the borders.
The German air assault was concentrated against those
airfields where the most modern Soviet aircraft were deployed.
30

32. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Wrecked Soviet aircraft.
On the first day of Barbarossa,
the Luftwaffe destroyed
1 , 8 1 1 Soviet aircraft for
the loss of only 35 German
aircraft, the greatest triumph
of aerial surprise attack in
aviation history. The heaviest
losses were at the centre of
the Soviet-German front,
where 520 aircraft were
destroyed on the ground
and 2 1 0 were shot down.
Aircraft in the Odessa military
district escaped this aerial blast
thanks to timely dispersal,
losingonlythreefighters.
Catastrophic though the
Soviet loss was, it could have
been even worse if all the
pilots had been casualties.
Below
Rivers - the San, the Bug, on
to the Dnieper - did not turn
out to be formidable barriers
to the German advance.
31

33. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
Two dead Red Army soldiers, the
one behind the Maxim heavy
machine-gun still holding his
Mosin-Nagant rifle. Lightly armed
Soviet frontier guards were wiped
out almost to a man, frequently
fighting delaying actions with
suicidal bravery. In the absence
of air cover, Soviet regiments
moving up to the front line were
destroyed by German bombers.
32

34. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1 9 4 1
Below
This message was carved
on a stone of the Brest
Litovsk fortress: "I am
dying. Farewell Motherland
but [ am not surrendering.
20July 1941." At 5 a.m.
on 22 June, fierce fighting
developed near the fortress.
Scratch units augmented
by units falling back on the
fortress took up the defence.
The fortress held out until 24
July, fighting from shattered
turrets and ruined emplace-
ments. Most defenders were
dead or wounded. In the
final phase, the few survivors,
among them the man who
carved the inscription on the
wall, mounted a last stand
in underground chambers
and tunnels, entombed
as they were in debris.
33
Left
A dead Russian mortar crew.

35. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Civilians help themselves to salt. All civilians suffered
horrendously in the first weeks of the war. If they escaped
with their lives, too much was heaped upon them. They
suffered either from drastic and brutal emergency mobilization
measures or mandatory orders. The very lowest echelons of the
Communist Party proved to be inflexible. At the approach of
the Germans, many Party members disposed of their Parly cards.
Right
A Soviet woman and her
children in the ruins of their
home. Many of the villages in
front-line zones had been heavily
bombed and machine-gunned.
Small villages and small
towns had been virtually wiped
out by German bombing,
and their fields of rye and
flax were left unharvested.
34

36. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
MOBILIZATION
The Red Army mobilized under fire, bringing more than
five million men into the armed forces by the end ofJune.
The Communist Party (CPSU) and Young Communist League •
Komsomol- mobilized 95,000 men, ofwhom 58,000 were sent
at once to the front as political instructors and agitators.
Mass mobilization ofthe populace included the formation of
"people's militia" (DNO) divisions, "home guard" units and
compulsory participation in civil defence groups. Trade Union
organizations and the Red Cross trained young women as
front-line medics. Women and young girls volunteered for the
front, the first of some 800,000 young girls and women to serve in
the Red Army as nurses, pilots, snipers and tank crew members.
Above
War is declared and Moscow listens. Only at noon on Sunday
22 June did the Soviet government, through the mouth of
Molotov, announce in a radio broadcast that the Soviet Union
was now at war with Germany. The eight hours since the onset
of the German attack had been spent partly in a final, frantic
search by Stalin for a way to escape war. A flood of Soviet
radio messages had been directed at the German Foreign
Office, and even the Japanese had been asked for help.
35

37. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
Anxious Muscovites listen as
Molotov's radio broadcast
continues: "The Government
calls upon you, men and women
citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally
even more closely round
the glorious Bolshevik Parly, round
the Soviet Government and our
great leader Comrade Stalin.
Our cause is just, the enemy will
be smashed. Victory will be ours."
Left
Wartime mobilization proceeded
relatively smoothly, initially bringing
5,300,000 men aged 23-36 to the
colours. These were the first of a
wartime turnover in manpower that
amounted to 21,700,000. In all, 29
million men were mobilized. Processing
the conscripts was the responsibility of
the "military commissariats" at all levels.
Men also reported to mobilization
points or to units themselves.
36

38. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
Off to the front. It is likely that new recruits
would first be addressed by political officers.
Few, if any, realized what awaited them. If
they did suspect, then their confidence was
more a product of propaganda than of
rigorous training. Their early wartime letters
reflected their mood and most carried brief
assurances for the family, such as: "I am well.
Don't worry". Others were more reflective,
patriotic or touchingly valedictory.
37

39. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
Instruction: elementary
tactics, handling the rifle.
By government decree
on 29 June 1941, universal
military training, or Vsevobuch,
was introduced for all citizens
between the ages of 1 6 and
65. New recruits to the
Red Army who had not
yet joined their units began
training, along with
local citizenry training
for defence purposes,
organizing special defensive
measures and raising a
militia (opolchenie).
Left
RedArmyRecruitstake
the military oath:"l, a citizen
of the USSR joining the ranks
of the Red Army, take the
oath and solemnly swear to
be an honourable, brave,
disciplined, vigilant fighter,
strictly guarding military
and state secrets ... I am
always ready on the orders
of the Workers-Peasants
Government to defend my
Motherland - the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics".
The oath was read out to
the recruits, who had to
repeat it. Infringement
brought swift retribution.
Stalin's "Order No. 270"
dated 1 6 August proscribed
deserters, panic-mongerers
and those who surrendered.
38

40. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
Soviet recruit trainees bayonet fighting. Newly mobilized
men were sent into units that were already disorganized,
which only created more confusion, or they were thrown
into "human wave" infantry attacks carried out with primitive
or stereotypical tactics. They would march into machine-guns
line abreast, advance in ranks 1 2 deep and ride in
trucks side by side with tanks straight into German guns.
39

41. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
Young woman learning tc
shoot using a Mosin-Nagant
rifle with Model PE telescope.
Young women and girls
figured prominently among
the early volunteers for the
Red Army and for the front.
Even without proper uniforms
they headed for the front
virtually in what they stood
jp, their plaits covered by
head scarves. In August
1941, 10,000 "Young
Communists", or Komsomol,
many of them women, were
sent immediately to the front
to join the signals troops.
40

42. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1 94 1
STALIN SPEAKS: 3 JULY
Molotov, not Stalin, announced a state ofwar on
22 June. Not until 3 July did Stalin speak publicly.
Although the Soviet Union was at war, it lacked a war machine.o
The Stavka (High Command Headquarters) was hurriedly
improvised. On 30 June, the all-powerful State Defence
Committee (GKO) headed by Stalin was established.
By August, Stalin held all the key wartime posts: Chairman
of the GKO, Defence Commissar and Supreme Commander.
Stalin's speech opened sensationally: "Comrades, citizens,
brothers and sisters, fighting men of our Army and Navy.
I am speaking to you, my friends." No apology for the Nazi-Soviet
Pact was forthcoming from Stalin, only exhortation to
intensive effort in the war. Little was said of the Party. This
was "patriotic war", with help from the British and Americans.
Above
Soviet infantry seen marching past a slogan that reads, "Our cause
is just, the enemy will be beaten, victory will be ours". These words,
first uttered by Molotov on 22 June, became a massively
emphasized theme in the "Patriotic War". At last, after days of
unbroken public silence, Stalin spoke on 3 July, an extraordinary
performance, which opened sensationally. Stalin had never spoken
ike this before. It was this that emphasized the gravity of the
situation. The speech was one of "blood, sweat and tears" bearing
comparison with Winston Churchill's post-Dunkirk speech.
41

43. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
Recruits to the "Peoples' Militia", or Opolchenie, being
drilled, including a bearded veteran displaying his medals.
Poorly trained and badly armed "militia divisions", recruited
from the streets or from factory benches, were marched to
nearby front lines, notably, in the case of Moscow, Leningrad
and Odessa. Casualties were extremely heavy. The men
who survived subsequently formed regular Red Army divisions.
42

44. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
German anti-Jewish propaganda poster: "The Jew is an
infection to the people". This was but one of countless
German propaganda posters designed to bolster their "crusade
againstJewish-Bolshevism" and to drive wedges between
groups in German-occupied territory. As the reality of German
rule - the atrocities, the killings, the deportations - became
more widely known, the posters became less and less credible.
43

45. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
A 1941 poster directed lo Soviet women:" JOIN THE RANKS
OF THE FRONT-LINE COMRADES, THE FIGHTING MAN'S
COMRADE, HELP-MATE AND FRIEND".This poster reflected
the tone of Stalin's 3 July speech, "Comrades, citizens,
brothers and sisters, fighters of our Army and Navy,"
one for all, all for one, the unity of front and rear,
stressing the contribution that women could and should
make — which, indeed, they did in magnificent style.
44

46. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
A poster glorifying partisans: "GLORY TO HERO-PARTISANS,
WRECKING THE FASCIST REAR". A graphic representation
of Stalin's 3 July exhortation, "in the occupied territories
partisan units must be formed...spreading the partisan
war everywhere, for blowing up and destroying roads
and bridges and telephone and telegraph wires."
The "intolerable conditions" which Stalin demanded the
invaders should suffer took time to materialize. Not until 1 942
did the partisan movement become widespread and effective.
45

47. CATASTROPHE: 1941
Right
Stalin's sonjakov Djugashvili,
prisoner of war (centre).
Jakov, an engineer by
profession, a senior lieutenant
and battery commander of
the 14th Howitzer Regiment,
attached to the 1 4th Tank
Division, was captured on
16 July 1941 near Vitebsk.
On discovering that their
prisoner was Stalin's son,
the Germans attempted to
exploit him for propaganda
purposes, but did not
succeed. Refusing privileges,
he asked to remain with the
rank-and-file soldiers. In all
the photographs of jakov, he
deliberately refuses to look
directly at the camera.
Left
A German leaflet directed at
Red Army soldiers, inciting
them to desert: "Do not shed
your blood for Stalin! He has
already fled to Samara! His
own son has surrendered! If
Stalin's son is saving his own
skin, then you are not obliged
to sacrifice yourself either!"
Left
Jakov Djugashvili, dead
on the electrified wire of
Sachenhausen concentration
camp, 14 April 1943. Much
controversy surrounds the fate
of Stalin's son. Some believe
it was suicide, others that the
suicide story was a cover-up
by the camp guards for a
bungled attempt to prevent a
suspected escape.
The German sentry Harfig
shot him. After the battle of
Stalingrad, Hitler suggested
through the Swedish
Red Cross that Jakov be
exchanged for Field Marsha!
Paulus. Stalin refused, saying:
"A marshal would not be
exchanged for a lieutenant".
46

48. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
LENINGRAD BLOCKADED
On 8 September 1941, the German Army isolated Leningrad
from the rest of Russia. Hitler decided not to storm the city
but to reduce it by bombardment and starvation, the prelude to
900 days of unmitigated hardship, hunger and horror. There were
2,544,000 civilians in the city, 400,000 of them children and
340,000 in the suburbs, trapped in the greatest and longest siege
endured by a modern city. The city held only peacetime food
stocks. By November, people were dying of hunger - there was no
food, no light, no heat and constant German shelling. More than a
million finally perished from starvation, gunfire and disease.
Above
In this classic picture of the defence of Leningrad (now called St.
Petersburg, its pre-Soviet name), anti-aircraft guns are being deployed
in the neighbourhood of St. Isaac's cathedral. On 20 August, Marshal
Voroshilov and Andrei Zhdanov, one of the key organizers of the city's
defence, set up the Military Soviet for the Defence of Leningrad. Stalin
objected because the Defence Soviet had been set up without his
authorization and replaced Voroshilov with General Georgii Zhukov,
who arrived in Leningrad on 10 September, announcing: "We are not
giving up Leningrad. We are going to defend".
47

49. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
"People's Volunteers" moving
to the front. Men of the
People's Militia (DNO) had
been originally projected as
the Leningrad Militia Army
(LANO). The idea of forming
1 5 Militia Divisions was
impossible without taking
workers from the factories.
On 4 July, it was decided to
recruit three Militia Divisions
in three days. Voroshilov
decided to elevate worker
battalions with the honorific
designation "Guards".
Left
Take a tram-car to the front
linel Tram-car No. 9
heading for the city limits.
There, the conductor shouted:
"Everybody off. This is the
front. End of the line".
People went to the front line
passing through streets
where they had gone
to school as children.
48

50. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1 9 4 1
Left
This famous picture shows
victims of the German
bombardment of Leningrad,
the first of 65,000 citizens
to die in the shell fire. On
4 September, German long-
range siege guns opened
fire on the city, shelling it
day after day for more
than two years. Shortly, the
exchange of fire developed
into a prolonged artillery
duel between the counter-
battery of Leningrad
guns pitted against
German siege weapons.
Right
The "Ladoga ice road".
With the winter came ice
and darkness. The ice on
Lake Ladoga made a
thin but solid connection
betveen Leningrad and a
Soviet shore-line. On
22 November, sixty lorries
under Major Parchunov
crossed the "Ladoga ice
road", following the tracks
of horses and sledges. This
road become "the road of
life", Leningrad's feasible but
dangerous life-line, staving off
disaster for a few more days.
49

51. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
ODESSA, SEVASTOPOL
Odessa is not to be surrendered." Between early August and
mid-October, the Red Army and Navy stubbornly defended
the Soviet naval base. To reinforce the Crimea, Stalin agreed to the
evacuation of Odessa, which was carried out with great skill. On
16 October, the last transport sailed for Sevastopol. In late
December 1941, Stalin planned to recover the Crimea, where
Manstein's Eleventh Army was assaulting Sevastopol using fire
from massive German guns. The Soviet amphibious landing
on the Kerch peninsula in December temporarily relieved the
pressure on Sevastopol, which held out until June 1942.
Above
Sergeant N.A. Lebedev's gun crew in action at Odessa.
In 1 941, the Black Sea naval bases, like other naval bases,
lacked a scheme of land and air defence. The Black Sea
Fleet and coastal defence secured the base against attack
from the sea. The possibility of attack from the land or rear
was barely considered. The fortification of Odessa began only
on 1 2 July, when the threat from the land had become real.
50

52. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
It was not Odessa but Sevastopol, whose ruins
are shown here, that became the "Soviet Tobruk".
The Germans had overrun the Crimea in
October 1 941 but had not subdued
Sevastopol. Soviet plans envisaged the
main threat coming from seaborne or
airborne assault. The siege of the naval
base began on 30 October. The first attempt
in November, by General Erich von Manstein's
Eleventh Army to take it off the march failed.
Below
The guns of the Black
Sea Fleet played a vitally
important role in beating
back this first German
assault on Sevastopol. The
battleship Paris Commune,
later renamed Sevastopol,
is seen in action firing her
mainarmament, 12-inchguns.
51

53. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
AID FOR RUSSIA
On 3 September, Stalin urgently sought Churchill's help,
needing a "second front somewhere in the Balkans or
France" and war supplies, raw materials and weapons. The Supply
Conference met in Moscow at the end of September 1941, an
important step in consolidating Anglo-Soviet wartime relations.
Chaired by Molotov, the Beaverbrook-Harriman mission agreed
to supply to the Soviet Union monthly stocks ofweapons, tanks,
guns and aircraft along with the raw materials copper, zinc and
aluminium and 10,000 tons of armour plate. The first of the
Arctic convoys carrying war material to Russia had sailed.
British Hurricane fighters were also operating from airfields
in northern Russia.
Above
British and American representa-
tives: Lord Beaverbrook in the
centre, William Averell Harriman
on Beaverbrook's left, arrive in
Moscow on 28 September for the
Supply Conference. On the
extreme left Andrei Vyshinskii,
behind him Admiral Nikolai
Kuznetsov, Commander of the
Soviet Navy. Behind Beaverbrook
is Sir Stafford Cripps, British
Ambassador to Moscow.
Opposite, bottom
Loading tanks for Russia. The first of many convoys loaded
with tanks and fighters set sail for Murmansk. At the Supply
Conference, the Soviet representatives proposed the
delivery of 1,1 00 tanks a month. It was decided that the
British and Americans would supply 500, along with 300
light bombers, 1 00 of which would come from the USA.
In addition, 1,000 tons of American armour plate would be
delivered as an instalment on the Soviet order for 10,000 tons.
52

54. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
The conclusion of the
Moscow Supply Conference
chaired by Molotov (front
row 3rd from right).
The Beaverbrook-Harriman
mission evidently reached
agreement on war supplies
for the Soviet Union and
monthly requirements of
equipment. One very
interested participant must
have been Anastas Mikoyan
(front row, third from left),
a key figure in the Soviet
wartime economy, head
of Red Army supply
and latterly involved in the
Lend-lease programme.
53

55. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Royal Air Force Hurricane
fighters, 1 5 1 Wing, in
Northern Russia. The Russians
badly needed fighters to
defend Murmansk. The first
British convoy to North Russia
included the veteran carrier
HMS Argus carrying 24
Hurricanes. Fifteen more
aircraft were crated and
loaded on to a merchant
ship. Once in range, the
24 aircraft on the Argus flew
off to the Russian mainland,
landing at Vaenga airfield,
1 7 miles from Murmansk.
The crated aircraft
were unloaded at
Archangel and assembled,
joining the Wing at Vaenga.
Right
A senior Soviet air
commander tries out his
newly arrived Hurricane
fighter aircraft, which appears
newly painted. The Red star
on the port wing has been
hurriedly over-painted on the
Royal Air Force roundel,
which is still just visible.
54

56. MOSCOW PREPARES TO FIGHT
C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
On 6 October 1941, the German Army launched Operation
Typhoon, which was designed to smash in the Moscow
defensive concentration. One week later, the Moscow district
staff ordered an emergency mobilization, with Zhukov
commanding the Western Front. The State Defence Committee
(GKO) mobilized the civilian population. A quarter of a million
Muscovites, 75 per cent of them women, were drafted to dig
trenches and anti-tank ditches. The "Moscow defence zone"
was established, dividing Moscow into three sectors to the
front and three lines to the rear. Factories were prepared for
demolition and bridges were mined. Many fled but a resolute
minority remained, Stalin included.
Right
On 1 2 October, Pravda
warned the citizens of
Moscow of the "terrible
danger" threatening the
capital. All citizens were to
mobilize, prepare for the
coming battle and organize
defences both on the
approaches to the city and
within the city. These women
are digging anti-tank ditches
along the highways into
Moscow, part of three
massive defence zones.
55

57. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Women welders at the
Hammer and Sickle factory
producing anti-tank
"hedgehogs", which
obstructed the tanks'
progress. The workers
in Moscow's concrete and
metallurgical factories were
ordered to produce more
"hedgehogs", barbed wire
and reinforced concrete for
gun positions. Women
workers at a lemonade
bottling factory prepared
"Molotov cocktails" to be
used against tanks. Factories
making household goods
now produced mines.
Right
Sandbags protecting
shop windows in Moscow
against air attack. German
bombing raids continued,
although not on the same
scale as in July. By night,
Moscow reverberated with
the sound of anti-aircraft
guns deployed on roof
tops and in open squares.
56

58. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
A famous wartime picture:
crowds gather at the
underground station on
Revolution Square in
Moscow, where a shot-down
Ju-88 bomber has been
put on display with several
of its defused bombs.
Left
An anti-aircraft gun deployed
on a Moscow roof top, the
Kremlin in the background.
The ferocity of Moscow's
anti-aircraft defences
surprised the Luftwaffe.
Other fronts were starved
for air cover and air
defence, but in Moscow,
General Mikhail Gromadin,
commander Moscow Air
Defence Zone, had I Anti-
Aircraft Corps with 796
guns and VI Air Defence
Fighter Corps with 600
fighters, including the
2nd Independent
Night Fighter Squadron.
57

59. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
The ubiquitous Moscow barrage balloon is seen here deployed
on Tver Boulevard near the Bolshoi Theatre. In addition to
fighters, anti-aircraft guns and barrage balloons, the defence of
Moscow involved a huge programme of camouflaging the city.
Mock factories were built, the walls of the Kremlin were painted
over to resemble house-fronts, Lenin's Mausoleum was
sandbagged and roads were painted to resemble rooftops.
58

60. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
TheMayakovskii
underground station.
The Russians had been
expecting the blitz on
Moscow and underground
stations were used for
emergency accommodation,
mainly for the elderly and
mothers with young children.
All stations provided first-aid
posts and rudimentary
enclosed latrines and some
even had small libraries.
Bunks or camp beds were
supplied for women,
children and the elderly.
Smoking was forbidden!
59

61. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Muscovites from the Kiev district
of the city build more barricades,
but many fled from Moscow. The
"great panic" occurred on 1 6
October - there was a rush for
the railway stations and the roads
east of Moscow were jammed
with lorries and cars moving east.
Many offices and factories
stopped working.
Right
Actors from the Moscow Theatre
donating their valuables for the
state defence fund. Like many
other Muscovites, the actors
responded to patriotic appeals
and the sense of danger. Workers
and actors from the Bolshoi
Theatre had already appeared in
the Lenino District of Moscow
digging anti-tank ditches. After the
"great panic", Moscow
recovered its nerve. Moscow
Radio announced that Stalin was
in the city and would remain
there, which had a positive effect
on morale.
60

62. INDUSTRY MOVES EAST
C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
In 1941, the Soviet Union embarked not only on the greatest
industrial migration in history but also on a second industrial
revolution. The Evacuation Soviet began work in earlyJuly to shift
major armaments plants to the east. At first, improvised
evacuation worked badly: dismantling took place under air attack
and railway lines were bombed. But between August and October,
a staggering 80 per cent of Soviet industry was "on wheels". The
railways accomplished a stupendous task, using one-and-a-half
million trucks to transfer 1,523 factories eastward. Moving the
factories was one problem, starting up production was yet another.
Machinery began operating even as new factory walls were
erected around it.
BBHMHBBBMBH
Above
In his broadcast of 3 July 1941 Stalin
issued immediate "scorched earth"
instructions: "The enemy must not be left
a single engine.. .not a pound of bread
or a pint of oil. Collective farmers must
drive away all their livestock, hand their
grain reserves to the state authorities for
evacuation to the rear." In scenes like
these, collective farmers with their pigs
and cows carried out Stalin's instructions,
all to the rear.
61

63. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
A classic scene of industrial evacuation that must have been replicated
many thousands of times. Plans were drawn up in July to establish a
"second line of industrial defence" in the eastern hinterland. Whole
factories were transplanted, not only from those industries threatened by the
German advance. The manufacture of armour plate was transferred
eastwards, the manufacture of tank engines was immediately transferred
from Kharkov to Chelyabinsk in the Urals. Evacuation also facilitated the
conversion of industries to war production. With the machines and
equipment went the workers and the technical staff, often whole families.
62

64. "PARTISAN WAR"
C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
On 18 July 1941, the Central Committee issued instructions
for the conduct of "partisan war" and the Party apparatus,
the Komsomol, the NKVD and the Red Army were all involved in
organizing the movement. The initial results were meagre and
scattered, but the long arm of Soviet authority was at least
re-emerging. The population was increasingly squeezed between
German and Soviet-partisan pressures, but anti-German feeling
was growing and the idea of a "patriotic war" was intensifying.
Senseless, self-defeating and brutal German occupation policies,
mass-murder rampages and vicious anti-partisan actions steadily
alienated the population. The first public hanging of a partisan
had already taken place.
Left
Soviet partisans in 1 941 taking the oath to "work a terrible
merciless revenge upon the enemy". The partisan and his family
swore to die rather than surrender. Stalin overcame his deep
suspicion of irregular warfare, and his speech of 3 July called
for the organization of partisan units. Partisans like these,
young and old, men and women, were not in the beginning a
serious fighting force because they lacked arms and supplies.
Below
Partisans laying demolition charges. In the early stages of
partisan warfare, the mission of partisan units in the immediate
and deep German rear was to slow the German advance,
where possible sabotaging the German communication
network. Soviet partisans also attacked German supply dumps,
sabotaged equipment and hid farming equipment in the forests.
Above
A meai for Red Army soldiers in the enemy rear. Many Red Army soldiers and Party
officials had been marooned behind German lines and soldiers from retreating
units escaped into woods. Here, a Red Army unit is receiving help from the local
population. Eventually, NKVD officers and Party and Komsomol members wore
infiltrated through German lines to organize and support partisan units.
63

65. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
The hanging of Soviet partisans in the Moscow region.
The German authorities reacted savagely from the outset
to partisan warfare, or Bandenkreig. Partisans and their
supporters, or suspected supporters, were liable to instant
death. The most brutal reprisals were authorized at the
highest level, even by Hitler himself. The German hostage
order stipulated that 50-100 hostages should be shot
for every dead German soldier. This was the opening
scene in an expanding war of terror and murder.
64

66. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
The first public execution
in German-occupied Russia
was the hanging of Masha
Bruskina on 26 October
1941 . Masha was
the precursor of thousands
who were rounded up
and publicly hanged with
placards round their necks,
intended to be an example
to the rest of the population.
Left
Partisans on the move in the forests and swamps that
typically formed partisan hideouts. Partisans faced an
appalling existence, living in constant fear of betrayal to
the Germans, who could buy informants for a handful of
marks. Spies and traitors were executed by partisans as
a matter of course. In some areas, partisans were given
food and shelter, in others they were betrayed or killed.
The population came off worst when trapped between
two sets of reprisals, the German and Soviet authorities.
65

67. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
66

68. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Opposite
A standard execution.
When partisans blew up
the Continental Hotel in
Kiev, Headquarters of the
German Sixth Army, all Jews
were ordered to report for
"resettlement". They were
marched to the outskirts of
the city, taken in small
groups, lined up against the
pit some 1 8 feet (5 metres]
long and eight feet (2.5
metres) deep and shot.
Right
Execution: a shot in the back
of the head, carried out with
a certain grim intensity, even
relish. Nazi indoctrination
was widely held accountable
for the younger officers'
obeying of criminal orders,
while there was a general
feeling that German soldiers
were culturally superior.
German officers felt a
contem pt for the Untermensch,
the "sub-human" Slav,
coupled with a disposition
towards anti-Semitism and
militantanti-Bolshevism.
German officers and men
were constantly reminded
that this was "a war of
ideological extermination".
Left
The bodies of civilian victims,
taken hostage and shot by
the Germans, left lying in a
schoolyard al Rostov-on-Don.
Overleaf
The mass execution of Soviet
prisoners of war and civilians
by a German firing squad
from an unidentified unit.
67

69. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941

70. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941

71. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Such was the scale of the
German slaughter in Russia
that the German command
was hard-pressed to find
the most efficient form of
extermination, particularly
with respect to the jews.
Some German commanders
disliked the inhumanity
of hanging. The preferred
method of the Einsatzgruppen,
the SS extermination squads,
was to round up all jews
and shoot them out of hand.
Here, a "standard"
execution is watched
by a youth (centre),
a member of the Nazi
youth labour organization.
70

72. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
Public hangings such as these became more frequent, even
routine. Bodies were left hanging in public places as a
deterrent to members of the resistance, partisans and those
displaying "anti-German" sentiments or committing "anti-
German" acts. A man was hanged, suspected of having
punctured German tyres. He was hanged along with another,
unknown, man. Both were left hanging for three days in full
view. No one was allowed to cut the bodies down.
Left
German soldiers hang Zoya
Kosmodemyanskaya, a member of the
Komsomol, a volunteer for active
service, who was sent behind German
lines as part of a sabotage unit. She
was taken prisoner while attempting to
blow up a German ammunition dump.
She was stripped and tortured to the
extent that even some German soldiers
were sickened. Covered in blood and
half dead, she was taken to the gallows
with a placard around her neck
denouncing her as a partisan. Zoya
posthumously became a decorated
Hero of the Soviet Union and an
inspiration for poems and films.
71

73. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya,
mutilated. On New Year's
Eve, drunken German
troops pulied her body off
the gallows and stabbed and
hacked it. During the night,
local inhabitants ran a terrible
risk by taking the mutilated
corpse away and digging
a grave in frozen earth.
Right
A grieving Russian mother.
As the extent and reality
of the German atrocities
became widely known
throughout Russia, the will
to resist stiffened and the
"patriotic war" became in
reality a "people's war",
but the cost to soldier and
civilian alike was horrendous,
as this mother attests.
72

74. "AWAROFEXTERMINATION"
C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
If the Germans want a war of extermination, they shall have
one," said Stalin in his speech of 6 November 1941, which
was delivered while German armies were less than 50 miles
(80 kilometres) from Moscow. The next day, Stalin held the
traditional military parade in Red Square. Riflemen, old T-26
tanks, and a few new, formidable T-34 tanks crossed Red Square,
moving straight off to the nearby front line. Aware of the risks,
Stalin had summoned General Zhukov to discuss the parade and
enquire about German intentions. German troops were
regrouping, Stalin was told, and no major attack was imminent.
Moscow's air defences were strengthened against a possible air
attack but neither ground assault nor air-raid materialized.
Above
The reviewing stand at the Kremlin, 7 November 1 941.
From left to right: Molotov, Marshal Budenny, Stalin, Georgii
Malenkov, Mikoyan and Aleksandr Shcherbakov. Marshal
Budenny is obviously prompting Stalin. The previous day, Stalin
had delivered his speech on the anniversary of the October
Revolution, the "war of extermination" speech. On 7 November
Stalin spoke out even more brutally, dismissing fears that "the
Germans could not be beaten", mocking it as the panic-talk
of a bunch of frightened intellectuals, reminding his listeners
that in 1 91 8 the Red Army had been in a worse position.
73

75. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
The Red Square parade on 7 November was traditional.
Stalin wanted the parade but he was not prepared to take
risks and questioned Zhukov about the likelihood of a German
attack. Zhukov replied that nomajor attack was expected in
the next few days, though air defences must be reinforced
and fighter aircraft must be moved up to form new
Fronts. Stalin's speech meant to steady Russia's nerve.
This sombre Moscow parade had a dramatic impact
and was regarded as a brave, even defiant act.
Below
Red Army motorcycle units,
their side-cars equipped with
DP light machine-guns, form
up for the 7 November
parade in Red Square.
The parade was of great
military importance, most of
the units involved moving
directly to front-line positions,
but was also a political act
of great symbolic significance.
74

76. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Right
Women and men working
to finish anti-tank defences
on Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya
Street in Moscow. It looked
as if these defences
were going to be needed:
on 15-16 November,
the Germans resumed
the attack on Moscow.
Left
The famous welded anti-tank
"hedgehogs" blocking a
Moscow thoroughfare.
During 1941, the face
of Moscow changed.
Anti-tank obstacles were
set up in most streets, many
more anti-aircraft batteries
were deployed and barrage
balloons were concentrated.
When not working in the
factories, teenagers were
engaged in fire-watching.
75

77. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
Women workers in a Moscow factory producing mortar bombs
under the slogan: "Our energy, our strength, our life - all
for the defence of Moscow!" Moscow factories underwent
rapid conversion to military use. The Kalinin and SAM
factories produced Katyusha rocket launchers and
machine-guns, the Moscow car factory produced
Shpagin machine-guns, while the Red Proletariat
machine-tool factory turned out mines, shells and fuses.
76

78. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Fourteen-year-old Sasha lends his
machine in a Moscow arms
factory. A great deal of untrained
labour, including youngsters like
Sasha, their numbers supplemented
by many who had been driven out
of the villages in the area of
Moscow, housewives and grand-
mothers now worked in factories.
Below
Women workers take time off for
machine-gun instruction.The
atmosphere in Moscow was now
visibly military, prepared for any
eventuality, and the "Moscow panic"
of October had long since subsided.
77

79. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
THE MOSCOW COUNTER-STROKE: 5 DECEMBER 1941
On 15 November 1941, the German Army opened its "final
offensive" against Moscow. Ten days later, German units
closed on Moscow to the north, just 20 miles (32 kilometres) from
the Kremlin. As temperatures plunged, decimated German and
Soviet units grappled with each other in the very suburbs ofMoscow.
The Red Army struck first on theflanks,Tikhvin in the north,
Rostov in the south. Meanwhile, Stalin carefully husbanded his
reserves. On 5 December 1941, the Red Army launched its Moscow
counter-blow. Eight days later, the Soviet press broke its silence to
announce the repulse ofthe Germans at the gates ofMoscow.
Left
On the left, Marshal Timoshenko seated at a Hughes
teleprintermachine.Behindhim,NikitaKhrushchev,member
of the Military Soviet of the Southern Front. On 9 November,
Timoshenko had submitted a plan to Stalin to attack the flank
and rear of First Panzer Army in the south. The Stavka had
ruled out any reinforcements, forcing Timoshenko to regroup
before he could launch his attack.
Left
Timoshenko and Khrushchev
studying the battle map
with Lieutenant Colonel
Ivan Bagramyan, Chief
of Operations. Soviet and
German divisions at Rostov
.moved simultaneously in
attack and counterattack on
1 7 November. German tanks
had penetrated the northern
suburbs of Rostov. The Soviet
objective was now the
liberation of Rostov and
a drive on Taganrog.
On 29 November, Soviet
divisions cleared Rostov and
theWehrmachtsuffered its
first major reverse, with far-
reachingconsequencesfor
the German command.
78

80. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
I
Above
From the streets of Moscow
straight to the front line,
which was dangerously
near. On the morning of
28 November, German units
were circling Moscow to
the north and were no
more than 20 miles (32
kilometres] from the Kremlin.
79

81. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
Major General Konstantin Rokossovskii, commander of the
16th Red Army at Istra stands second from right, with Divisional
Commissar A. A. Lobachev and Coionel Afanasii Beloborodov,
commander of the Siberian 78th Rifle Divison. Also present was
the writer Vladimir Stavskii, who was subsequently killed in
action aged 43. Istra was a key point in the defences along the
Volokolamsk Highway. Beloborodov's Siberians were deployed
along the Istra river and at the high dam of the Istra reservoir.
80

82. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1 941
Above
Planning the Moscow counter-stroke at Western Front HQ.
From left to right: Lieutenant General Nikolai Bulganin,
Member of the Military Soviet, one of Stalin's "super-
commissars"; Western Front commander General Zhukov;
Chief of Staff Colonel General Vasilii Sokolovskii; and
General Ivan Khokhlov, (Supply), member of the Military
Soviet. On 30 November, Zhukov had presented
his plans to Stalin and the Stavka. The objective
was the destruction of the two German armoured
wedges that lay north and south of Moscow.
81

83. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
Destroyed German equipment at Klin. The Red Army's counter-
stroke opened on 5 December 1 941. In the battle for Moscow,
both the Red Army and the German army had fought almost
down to their last battalions, but Stalin had skilfully husbanded
reserves. In the battle of the "Klin bulge", Zhukov's troops
attempted to destroy Panzer Groups 3 and 4. By noon on
7 December, forward Soviet units were over-running the
Headquarters of LVI Panzer Corps outside Klin. Klin had
assumed enormous significance as the lynch-pin of Panzer
Group 3 and the hinge of Army Group Centre's left wing.
82

84. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
Red Army attacks developed
across more than 500 miles
(800 kilometres], stretching
from the north to the south
of Moscow. Zhukov gave
orders to avoid frontal
attacks wherever possible.
Soviet tactics depended
on mobile pursuit units like
those in the photograph,
their function being to cut
German lines of retreat and
create maximum confusion.
Right
A Soviet infantry patrol with
dogs, man and dog alike
in snow camouflage.
Dogs were trained to carry
explosives and ambush tanks.
83

85. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
Soviet troops launched their
offensive as temperatures
dropped steeply and with
snow lying three feet (a
metre) thick. German troops
suffered severely from
the shortage of winter
clothing, but at least
Soviet infantry (pictured here)
was adequately dressed.
However, the ferocious
weather did hamper
Soviet operations: the
Red Army suffered from
a desperate shortage of
motor lorries, resulting in
insufficient supplies of food
and ammunition, so horse-
drawn sleighs had to be
substituted for lorries.
Left
General Zhukov lacked the
large tank formations that
were needed for the planned
breakthrough: the six tank
and motorized divisions of
the Western Front had
virtually no armour. In the
absence of large mobile
forces, Zhukov turned to the
cavalry, notably Major
General Pavel Belov's 1 st
Guards Cavalry Corps and
Major General Lev Dovator's
2nd Guards Cavalry Corps.
Casualties were inevitably
heavy in breakthrough
operations or raids into the
German rear and General
Dovator was killed in action
on 20 December 1941.
84

86. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
A battery of Katyusha multiple-rocket launchers, nicknamed
"Stalin's organ", in operation. In 1940, the Main Artillery
Administration had placed orders for experimental M-l 3
rockets, but in the same year a 1 6-rocket launcher was
developed and mass production was authorized on 21 June
1 941. The Red Army first used the Katyushas on 1 4 July 1 941
and the results were reported as "excellent". The Katyushas
were a formidable bombardment weapon much feared by the
Germans and were closely guarded, usually hooded in canvas,
manned by elite units designated "Guards Morlar Regiments".
85

87. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Above
A deserted German sentry box on the outskirts of
Moscow. By mid-December, the results of the Red
Army counter-offensive had become vastly encouraging:
the German Army had been driven away from Moscow,
removing the immediate threat to the city, and the Red
Army had made great progress on the northern and southern
flanks. But the German centre had as yet to be unhinged
and the Panzer groups had so far escaped Zhukov's traps.
86

88. C A T A S T R O P H E : 1941
Left
In Volokolamsk, west of
Moscow, a boy removes
German road signs following
the town's liberation in late
December 1941. Zhukov
was not convinced that the
"Lama-Ruza line" was the limit
of the German withdrawal
and had on 20 December
issued fresh orders for an
advance beyond this line.
Right
A German cemetery in
Russia. For propaganda
reasons, Stalin had grossly
exaggerated German losses.
Nevertheless, the Wehrmacht
had suffered very severely.
The total number of
Germans killed by mid-
December 1941 amounted
to 775,078 men. During the
second German offensive
against Moscow, from
1 6 November to
5 December, the Soviet
authorities'calculationsof
German losses were:
55,000 killed in action,
100,000wounded
or severely frost-bitten
and 777 tanks lost.
87

90. 1942
RECOVERY
At the end of the first week ofJanuary 1942, the Red Army went
over to a general offensive across the entire Soviet-German
front. The success of the Soviet counter-offensive at Moscow,
officially terminated on 7 January, persuaded Stalin that "the Germans
are in disarray, they are badly fitted-out for the winter". The moment
had come to attempt the destruction of German forces near
Leningrad, west of Moscow and in the south. German Army Group
Centre, still a threat to Moscow, was the prime target. The Leningrad
Front received orders to relieve Leningrad, now in desperate straits,
and destroy Army Group North. In the south, the Red Army was to
attack Army Group South, liberate the industrial region of the
Donbas and free the Crimea.
The Soviet General Staff had already drafted these offensive
plans in mid-December 1941. The destruction of all three German
Army Groups was to be a prelude to "driving them westward without
pause", exhausting their reserves. In the spring, the Red Army would
have powerful reserves, the Germans few. The eventual prospect of
"the complete destruction of the Hitlerite forces in 1942" mesmerized
Stalin. On 5 January 1942, he presented his grandiose "war-winning"
plans for the further conduct of the war to an enlarged session of the
Stavka. General Zhukov protested. The entire plan was a distortion of
reality. Rather than concentrating on the destruction ofArmy Group
Centre and exploiting the success of the Western Front, Stalin proposed
to expand outward with every Soviet Front. Chief economic planner
Vbznesensldi supported Zhukov. The necessary supplies to support
simultaneous offensives on all fronts were simply not to hand. Stalin
disagreed: "We must grind the Germans down with all speed, so that
they cannot attack in the spring." General Zhukov had argued in vain.
Attack directives had already gone to Front commanders before the
Stavka meeting. Stalin issued categorical orders: offensive operations
must continue without delay, without waiting for the final assembly
of assault formations.
By the end of February Stalin's attempt to seize the strategic
initiative had failed. Soviet uninterrupted offensives were dashed
against the rocks of German resistance that implemented Hitler's
"Stand Fast" order. Leningrad remained blockaded. At the centre, for
all its deep and dangerous thrusts, Zhukov's offensive was flagging.
Parachute troops were no substitute for men, mobility and firepower.
In the south, Timoshenko hacked his way into Army Group South
but failed to achieve a major breakthrough. Late in March, Stalin's
first strategic offensive shuddered to a halt.
Stalin now considered the summer campaign. Ostensibly agreeing
to move to "the provisional strategic defensive", he secretly gave
orders for "partially offensive operations", including a huge, three-front
operation in the south planned for May. Stalin had some grounds
for optimism. The Wehrmacht had lost a third of its strength.
Red Army order of battle reportedly amounted to 400 divisions
supported by 10,000 tanks and 11,000 aircraft. The economy was
reorganized to sustain protracted war. Enduring great hardship,
Soviet workers increased output, producing 4,468 tanks and 3,301
aircraft between January and March 1942. Tank corps reappeared and
tank armies formed up. The Red Army was slowly emerging as a more
89

91. R E C O V E R Y : 1942
viable fighting machine. But "to attack and defend simultaneously"
invited disaster.
In early April, Hitler's attention was fixed on the flanks, concentrating
"main operations in the southern sector", destroying the Red Army west
ofthe Don, driving toward the Caucasus oil fields. Stalin concluded
that Moscow and the "central region" would be the German target.
Evidence to the contrary he dismissed as "disinformation". He planned
to hold advanced positions at the centre, de-blockade Leningrad and
liberate Kharkov and the Crimea. German intelligence predicted
the "Kharkov offensive". British intelligence advised Moscow that
the Germans were forewarned and preparing to strike. Timoshenko
attacked on 12 May 1942, north and south of Kharkov. Five days
later the German counter-attack developed. Timoshenko's armies ran
straight into a trap, into encirclement and disastrous defeat, but Stalin
and the Sta-vka refused to call offthe offensive. Appalling clusters of
Russian dead were piled high on the edges of German gun-pits. Only
27,000 men escaped alive from the encirclement and Red Army losses
amounted to more than 250,000 men. The entire Soviet southwestern
axis lay in ruins. Stalin erupted in a fury. For the first time he used the
word "catastrophe".
Worse was swiftly to come. Incompetence bordering on criminality
led to further huge losses in operations aimed at clearing the Crimea,
blunders that forced Soviet troops off the Kerch peninsula, a "ghastly
mess" costing 176,000 men. German guns moved to reduce the
fortress of Sevastopol, a fiery prelude to Manstein's final assault
with Eleventh Army. Far to the north, General A. A. Vlasov's 2nd
Shock Army, fighting to free starving Leningrad from the agonies of
unbelievably nightmarish siege conditions, had been trapped for
some time. Deprived of rescue, 2nd Shock finally succumbed in
June. General Vlasov was taken prisoner and elected to join the
Germans, bent on raising his "anti-Stalin liberation army".
To plug these huge rents torn in the Red Army, Stalin, convinced
that Japan was wholly committed in the Pacific, drew on his Far Eastern
armies to replenish his reserves. Adamant that Hitler was aimed at
Moscow and cunningly encouraged by a German deception operation
(Operation Kremlin), Stalin continued to pile armour and reserves on
the Western and Bryansk Fronts. The reality was Hitler's Operation
Blau (Blue), which aimed at the final destruction of the Red Army.
Two huge German pincers striking from the north and south were to
meet west of Stalingrad between the Don and the Donets, where they
would squeeze the life out ofremaining Soviet resistance, followed by a
drive into the Caucasus. Dismissing intelligence reports, Stalin persisted
in believing this to be a German "feint", berating his intelligence officers
for not having uncovered the real German intentions.
Germany had regained the strategic initiative in the east.
Anticipating "further great trials", Stalin set out on a search for a
Second Front, despatching Molotov to London and Washington in
late May 1942. The signing of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty was a step
forward, but it did not produce a binding commitment to opening
a Second Front. Nevertheless, Stalin believed it did, which was the
cause of resentment and recrimination when Churchill met Stalin
in Moscow in mid-August.
At the end ofJune, "great trials" undoubtedly beset the Soviet
Union, inducing a sense of disaster and precipitating a huge crisis.
The Wehrmacht unleashed Operation Blau on 28 June 1942,
unmistakably driving southeast, finally forcing Stalin to begin
redeploying divisions held in reserve at Moscow, which were desperately
needed by Soviet armies in the south. Marshal Timoshenko's
Southwestern Front, already badly weakened by the May defeat, was
torn apart by General Paulus's Sixth Army. The threat to Timoshenko's
rear now spread to Malinovskii's Southern Front, which was battered by
the German Seventeenth Army and First Panzer Army.
The Stavka wound up the Southwestern Front on 12 July 1942
and replaced it with the Stalingrad Front commanded by Timoshenko,
stiffened with three reserve armies, armies that had yet to detrain and
deploy. Available infantry undertook gruelling forced marches to a front
line largely unknown to their commanders. Stalin now accepted the
inevitability ofwithdrawal in the southeast. The General Staffwanted
no more "stand fast" orders, no repetition of the disasters of Kiev and
Vyazma. The Red Army would hold Voronezh to contain German
forces otherwise moving southward. Timoshenko and Malinovskii
received timely orders to withdraw. Holding German forces at Voronezh
gave Timoshenko time to pull his battered divisions over the Oskol,
the Donets and the Don, an orderly withdrawal covered by rear-guard
90